On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Papa Legba wrote:

>
> I actually think that would still only be a 20% increase in
> effectiveness...

Hmm, let's formalize this.

You have B hp, mob has M hp.

Your songs do S damage/sec, mob does D damage/sec to you.

Your songs heal you at H hp/sec.

Your survival time is your hp divided by the damage you take
per sec plus the hp you heal per sec. ts = B/(D-H)

Time to kill a mob is tk = (M/S).

Ratio of kill time to survival time, R = tk/ts, determines
outcome. If R > 1, you die. If R < 1, you win.

R = (M/S)/(B/(D-H)) = M(D-H)/SB = MD/SB - MH/SB

R' = M(D-1.2H)/1.2SB = MD/1.2SB - MH/SB

R' = R - 0.167MD/SB

So the kill time to survival time curve is shifted down by an
amount -0.167MD/SB. In other words, you can barely kill stuff
that's about 17% harder. However the easier the stuff is to
kill (the lower the tk/ts ratio), the proportionately better
off you'll be, approaching infinitely better at 0.167MD/SB (at
which point you lose no hp during the fight). The healing
bonus becomes a non-factor since the extra healing rate is
exactly canceled out by the reduced time to kill a mob.

So against barely-killable mobs, the 7-string lute is 17% more
effective. But the more easily killed the mob is, the
7-string lute becomes more and more effective, approaching
infinity (the point where your hp doesn't go down with a
7-string lute, but you still lose hp with a normal lute).

--
John H. Kim
kim@...